The present invention relates to an apparatus wherein an apertured article fed to a loading position and by a pivoting movement and upward and downward movement of an arm member and by the ability of a chucking head to rotate the article, the article is subjected to a desired treatment at a working position, the treated article being released at an unloading position by the reversible revolving movement of the arm member.
As is well known subjecting mass-produced articles, such as the inner and outer races of rolling-contact bearings, and assemblies of inner and outer races and rolling bodies, to a rust-preventing oiling treatment, a washing treatment and the final bar-form packaging operation, requires a large number of workers.
With known conventional methods the thickness of the rust-preventive oil films varies from article to article, which is undesirable from the standpoint of guarantee of quality. Further, the rust-preventive oil is consumed more than is necessary, which is considered to be a factor causing an increase in the running cost.
Generally, the rust-preventive oil applied to products such as bearings should be in the form of a film of uniform thickness, and it is also necessary that the oil films be prevented from flowing out during transport or storage of the articles. For this reason, rust-preventive oils which have a suitable degree of viscosity at ordinary temperature have been used.
In order to treat articles with a rust-preventive oil of such nature by the known methods it is necessary to reduce the viscosity of the rust-preventive oil to render the oil flowable. Therefore, the rust-preventive oil in the holding tank is heated to about 80.degree. C. by suitable means.
In addition to this heating operation, the operation of removal of the excessive oil for obtaining a uniform film takes much time. Furthermore, the conventional apparatus are large in size and accordingly require a large space for installation. Articles treated by such apparatus are built up into stacks each consisting of a predetermined number of articles and then packaged in a bar form or when a large number of articles are handled, they are piled up on a storage block for temporary storage. These operations also take much time.
Labour-saving in connection with simple operations such as those described above is the need of the times, and the mechanical treatment of articles one by one, or the so-called small-groups control is of absolute necessity.